Chapter 627 - New Relic (Patreon)

When Hera returned, she placed the original Yarnball on the workbench. Right by its side was the new version she created using the replicas. At first glance, both looked a lot similar. It still had the same appearance as a case of floss, but the replica had a few changes. The visor was still in the same place, even if the opening faced outward instead of up. The entire thing didn't look all that impressive since, even with all the tools, Hera wasn't able to do as perfect a job as the system did. Still, it looked good in her eyes. It was not perfect, but it was still great for the first attempt.

"Why are you waiting, mum?" Daskka asked.

"I don't know. I'm just nervous, I guess," Hera replied.

"Everything will work. You already got the skill, after all," Nimbus added.

"Correct, you don't have to worry. Everything will be fine, Hera," Lurize gave her a warm look.

'Yeah, even if the whole letting us move further doesn't work, you can always fix that later. The important part is that you are making changes, and we know that the magnet thing already works,' Core added.

Hera smiled, "I know. Thank you, guys," she took a deep breath and opened the new skill, "Let's do this."

Looking at the Explorer's Blueprint, Hera felt like she was staring at a computer software that dealt with schematics. Something used by engineers or architects. Funny enough, she had two blueprints available, one for a skinning knife and one for Yarnball. The challenge where she made Edge in the Seven Islands seemed to have given her an extra reward. She ignored that part for now and opened Yarnball's blueprint. It showed each piece and what they would do. The visor only appeared as a material and with a description of what it would do. However, when touching the other pieces, she could see much more detailed information. It wasn't just the materials and functions they had but also the spells placed on them and how the spell circles interacted. To her surprise, she could change the spells right there on the blueprint. Increase or decrease their size, which allowed her to make a much more clean spell circle for everything and even run tests to see how the mana would run on that configuration.

Hera decided to fix a few issues that she had already noticed and was about to confirm the changes and remake Yarnball when she saw a button on the corner marked as 'Remodel.' Out of curiosity, she pressed it, expecting to be able to cancel if it wasn't anything she wanted, and got pleasantly surprised. The Remodel option allowed her to change the appearance of her relic. Sure, she was used to its floss case look, but she already had a few ideas to make it better for what she wanted.

She first tried to stretch the visor to display more information, which worked to a point. It seemed like the visor that would answer her questions had a minimum thickness, which meant there was a limit to how much she could change its dimensions. In the end, she only increased it by a few centimeters before reaching the maximum size of the visor. However, the casing itself had a lot more room to be changed. Hera decided to make something that could be attached to her belt, making it horizontally wider while vertically smaller. At the same time, she created a flap to turn the visor up. That way, she could ask questions and get the information without removing the relic from her waist. She would still have that option, but doing so allowed her to make Yarnball more secure, which was a worry she had now that she was changing things. The small part that would launch the magnets to her blades was also more visible and facing forward. That way, all her blades had to do was pass in front of it to receive those magnets. Hera tried changing how the magnets looked themselves, but at the moment, she could only change their dimensions, not anything else. Either way, she finished her remodeling and changed the colors to match the black of her new armor, hoping to make the relic blend with it.

When satisfied, Hera pressed the done button, which sent her to the previous screen where she could transfer the changes to the original.

"Guys, can I ask you all to hold my hand? I don't know why, but this is making me really anxious," Hera turned to her court. Nimbus and Lurize quickly grabbed her hand while Daskka wrapped herself around Hera's neck. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the confirm button and watched as the replica and the original relic started to glow and merge. At the same time, she felt all of her mana leave her body. Worried that she had done something wrong, she looked around the skill but noticed that there was a mana cost to this process equal to her maximum mana. She also saw a loading bar informing her that the process would take five minutes to complete.

"Since you are doing that and have already completed the quest, I will explain a little about your skill. Ok, kid?" Peaches appeared behind her on a small table with a small snake wearing a witch's hat by his side, "Tara. This is part of the job. If you are here, you need to explain how the skill works and answer any questions they have about it."

Tara nodded, "I understand."

"We do have to wait anyway," Hera scratched the back of her head, "Are there any tricks to it? I mean, the description kind of says everything."

She opened the description just to confirm if she was reading it correctly.

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Explorer's Blueprint
Role skill

Allows you to make items quickly by using the blueprints. After you find or create a blueprint, you can simply add the materials to the skill and confirm it to create the item. Doing so allows you to forge an item exactly as it is shown in the blueprint.
You can also make changes and perform tests that are within your own knowledge using the skill to confirm the viability of said changes.
Creating an item will have a proportional mana cost to the strength of the item.
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"There are a few details that are important for you to know. First things first. When you make something using the blueprint, you can never make something better than what is there. Think of it like this, if you are forging a sword, there are times when it will get better properties or some bonus effect, but using the skill removes that possibility completely. Second, if you try to make something by hand, without using the skill, you can make something worse than what the blueprint shows. That's different for crafters. They don't need to worry about that since the blueprint skill makes sure each creation is at least as strong as the blueprint."

"Oh, really? That's cool for them," Hera nodded. She wasn't much of a crafter herself, and if she could make something like Armory, Scythe, a dagger, and her boots consistently, she would be more than happy. When trying to make something stronger, she would try to be in a better location where she could focus anyways.

Peaches tilted to the side, "You seem less upset about that than I expected. That's good. Next thing. You can't use materials you don't know about when using the skill. When I say that you have to know the material, I mean that if you have something made out of metal, you have to use a similar metal. You can substitute copper with gold, silver, or steel without a problem. But if you want to use fire alloy or cold iron, you need to make the thing by hand first. Then more options will appear for you. That's another difference between your skill and that of a crafter. They can just add the materials and see how they would work together."

"Ok, like it's annoying, but that's not so bad. I imagine that making the same item by hand would help me improve it anyway. Especially if I'm using different materials," Hera replied.

"That was the next thing I was going to say. If you find a way to make an item better, the blueprint will be automatically updated. But unlike crafters, you can't choose to make the lesser versions even if they take fewer materials. Your blueprint only allows you to make the best thing possible," Peaches continued.

That part made Hera frown, "Hang on. So if I make a sword, then I turn it into an elemental sword. I can never make a regular sword again?"

"Not quite. If the improvement is enough to make a new item. Like the elemental sword example you just used, it will be considered a new blueprint and not just an improvement on the previous one. Improvements would be things like adding a guard to a sword or some padding to armor to make it more comfortable. Changing the make of a weapon, or adding a spell to it, would be considered a new item altogether," Peaches explained.

"Oh. ok, that's not so bad, then. Still sucks that I can't make weaker things if it's an emergency, but I guess I have to deal with that," Hera nodded.

Peaches explained a couple more details and some functions, including a few things that the Empress already had understood about it, and then the group just waited for the relic to finish updating. When the five minutes passed, the relic still glowed, and a new option appeared in the blueprint window.

"Do I want to rename the relic?" Hera read it aloud, "Is that common?" she turned to Peaches.

"Actually, yes. Most people want to change the name of their relics to something more… cool sounding since the system usually makes some bland names. I remember one guy who had a relic called Service Bot but later changed that to Chestnut when he changed the relic to look like a ferret. Just a heads up, this is the only chance you have to do it. If you don't, the name will stay the same in the future."

"Hum… I don't know… Does anyone have a good idea?" Hera turned to her court.

"If I may?" Lurize spoke up and got a nod as a response, "Yarnball began az a thing that would make thread and point to a direction. That remindz me of the tale of the minotaur."

"Me too. I always thought that was the origin of the name," Hera nodded.

"Then, there iz another part to that tale. The one who gave Thezeuz the ball of yarn was a woman called Ariadne. We could use that."

"Ariadne…. I kind of like that. It keeps the meaning and sounds more like a part of the team," Hera smiled. She also sensed that the rest of her court agreed with that idea.

Writing the new name, she pressed the confirmation button, and her new relic was born.

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Ariadne - Hera's relic
This relic can help you find answers as long as you are willing to pay the price. It also helps you to send mana across small distances and control the direction mana moves.

Passive effects:
Magnet attachment
Ariadne will generate a magnet every so often. These magnets can be attached to any mana that originated from Hera herself. Once attached, the magnet will last for a few hours. After that time is over, the magnet will break off and dissolve. If the magnet is returned before the duration is over, it can be repaired by Ariadne at a faster speed than it would require to make a new one. These magnets work as a mana delivery system supported by the mana that is being constantly siphoned from Hera. The farther away the magnet is from Hera, the more mana it will require to maintain the connection.
Maximum number of Magnets stored: 15
Magnet duration: 2 hours.
Magnet repair rate: 10% every 10 minutes.
Only 3 magnets can be repaired at a time. If more require repairs, they will be on hold until a repair slot becomes available.
Magnet creation rate: 1 every 5 hours.
Individual mana siphon cost: 10m/s
Long-distance mana cost: When the magnet is farther than 200 meters away, the siphon cost doubles every 10 meters.

Active effects:
Magnetic pull
Once the magnet is attached to a part of Hera's mana, it can be activated to pull or push the mana around. This activation requires only a command from Hera or the mana that it's attached to and can be done as many times as required without reducing the duration of the magnet. However, there is a brief delay between activations of this skill.
Cooldown: 1 second

Ariadne's Inquiry
By injecting mana into Ariadne while asking a question. The relic can give an answer through the screen. The amount of mana required for each answer will vary; if not enough mana is used, the reply will inform that. If the question is related to a location or something too big for the screen, the information will show in your [Treasure Map] or as a notification. The amount of details acquired by the inquiry depends on the owner's strength.
On extremely rare occasions, you may get the answer to a question that goes far beyond the amount of mana used to ask the question. When this happens, the cooldown will have a massive increase. Once this cooldown is over, the cooldown time will return to normal.
Cooldown: 1 hour.
Cooldown when a question beyond the cost is answered: 24 hours.
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"Holy shit. This is amazing!" Hera gasped. She wasn't able to see the new version of the relic using the replicas and had no idea about some of the details.

"Yeah, kid. Usually, making the relic your own makes things much better. Then again, that cheat question skill only happened because you got lucky," Peaches nodded.

"I can't wait to test this outside. Having my blades go from 50 meters to 200 will be a huge difference. Especially if they can still do the conga line," Hera was grinning from ear to ear.

"Well. You can leave now, kid. Or you can stay and sleep here," Peaches suggested.

Hera stopped for a moment, "I think I should go. As much as I wanted to stay here and hang out, we are running on a time crunch, and I don't want them to have to sleep on top of each other," Hera replied.

"I get that. Congratulations on the new skill, kid. And on the possibility of ascension," Peaches smiled and gestured to the snake by his side.

"Thanks, and thanks for telling me about the ascension, Tara. We can still talk even if I don't want to, right? I mean, you said that you would be willing to answer questions about the Naga skills."

Tara nodded, "Yeah, just call me when you want to talk… Or hang out?" she turned to Peaches almost as if to confirm if that was the right question.

"Will do. It was a pleasure to meet you," Hera said with a smile and let her court say their goodbyes to the two beings in front of them before dismissing the blades and leaving the reception.

Just as she was covered in white light, Peaches sighed, "I hope this skill helps you get rid of the curse, kid. We are going to need all the help we can get."